Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Don't Panic, Don't Panic: Know What Your Job Is

At no point is panicking part of our job description as dog parents. That doesn't mean that we don't volunteer ourselves for it. I know I do.

On Sunday morning Cookie got up looking quite sick.

She looked quite lethargic and weak, had no interest in food. She did come out with us but even from the way she carried herself we could see she's not well.

When a vibrant, active, young dog looks like this, you KNOW something isn't right.

My heart sank.

Something was quite wrong.

Our job, then, was to figure out whether we should make an emergency visit to the vet, whether this was going to go away on its own, or whether it could wait till Monday.

That is the big part of the dog parent's job. Figuring out whether, and how fast, your dog needs to see a vet.

Other than lethargy, weakness and disinterest in food, there were no other symptoms to go on. No diarrhea, no vomiting (at least not yet). Breathing and heart rate seemed normal. Temperature seemed normal. There was no detectable pain. Gums looked pink, even though a little sticky.

My main concern was another bout of pancreatitis. The initial signs were extreme tiredness and not wanting to eat. Vomiting and diarrhea didn't come until later.

After some discussion we decided to give it a little bit of time to see whether it improves.

Don't get me wrong, I was worried sick. But as worrisome as it looked, it didn't look like a gotta-see-a-vet-right-now type of emergency. At least not yet.

We let Cookie rest to see whether her body can deal with the problem on its own.

The slightest sign of things getting worse, we'd be on our way.

However, by noon Cookie seemed to look slightly better. She even accepted a few pieces of slow-cooked beef. That was a good sign.

We let her rested some more and little later she ate some boiled chicken breast.

By evening she was greatly improved and by next morning she was her normal self.

It was a major relief.

Believe me, I'm not a proponent of wait and see approach, ever. Ironically, though, I also believe in giving the body a chance to heal itself, when it can. Cookie being young and healthy dog, her body did a great job resolving whatever the problem was.Perhaps she felt really badly and it passed, perhaps she's a bit of a drama queen?

Jasmine had high pain threshold and it took a lot for her to show something wasn't right. Perhaps Cookie isn't like that and shows things readily.

I'd much rather have a dog overplay how they feel then downplaying it.

Or maybe she even wasn't, maybe it's the way I'm trained to see things.

The main thing is that she's been perfectly fine since then (at least to the time of writing this post). We're still being watchful, though.

4 comments

So glad Cookie is feeling better :) I hate that feeling of wondering how serious an issue is and whether you should see a vet or wait and see what happens.

Once when Haley had a slight limp, I was glad we took her to the vet. She had a stretched ACL on her back leg and needed two weeks of total rest, then an easing back into normal activity. If we had not gone to the vet, she probably would have torn the ACL because she's such an active and crazy dog. It was hard to keep her from playing hard and running around for those two weeks, but really worth getting it checked out to avoid further damage and possible surgery.

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